Astronomers Reveal Largest 3D Map Yet of Our Local Universe

Photo: The 2MASS Redshift Survey (2MRS) has catalogued more than 43,000 galaxies within 380 million light-years from Earth. In this projection, the plane of the Milky Way runs horizontally across the center of the image. Click to enlarge. Credit: T.H. Jarrett (IPAC/SSC) It took 10 years of painstaking calculations, but astronomers at Cambridge's Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have finally unveiled the most complete 3D map of our local universe yet -- an area that covers 380 million light years and an estimated 43,000 galaxies. Stargazing buffs will be delighted to hear that the survey also reveals details that were previously obscured in earlier maps.